Bee Busy This Summer

Don't worry, it's not real!

I'm probably the last person anyone would expect to want to help bees, but even I have to admit they do us good. About 1/3 of the food we eat has made it to our plates thanks to pollination from bees, across the EU they're responsible for pollinating almost 84% of our crops. So as long as they do their thing far away from me I'm happy for them to do it!

Sadly, the worlds' population of bees are dying out and Britain is losing them the fastest. We could be a bee-free country by 2018 and as much as I'd enjoy my summers more without them, we do really need them. It's estimated that the British Agriculture Industry could lose as much as £440 million a year without them, not to mention the devastation to our eco-systems.

Neonicotinoids (Neonics for short) are largely to blame for the disappearing bees - they're 7,000 times stronger than DDT (banned in Britain in 1984) and studies have shown that they damage human health as well as killing off all insects that ingest them. For more information on bees and why they're disappearing, check the links at the bottom of this blog.

But this post would be useless if I just told you the sad story that bees are facing. Now it's time to tell you what you can do to help them out! And if you're anything like me, you'll be relieved to know you can help the little pests out without getting up close and personal. I can even feel your sigh of relief from here! So here's the run down of things you can do:

Buy local honey.
By creating a demand for it, you're ensuring that the investment goes in to keeping local bees. You're also getting honey that isn't full of preservatives and hasn't been flown hundreds of miles to get to you. So you can give anyone buying foreign honey a smug look as you pat yourself on the back for being kind to your body AND the environment!

Wash out empty jars of foreign honey.
If you've gone for the cheaper option of buying foreign honey (which in the economic climate is understandable) do your local bees a favour and wash out every last remenant before putting the jars out for recycling. Local bees will be attracted to the remaining honey in the pot, which contains foreign bacteria that is harmful to our native bees.

Plant Bee Friendly Flowers.
Even if you only have a small plot of land, you can use it to encourage bees to visit and pollinate. There are plenty of bee friendly plants to choose from, for a list of them click here.

Adopt a bee hive.
You can help out bee hives without going anywhere near them by adopting a beehive. The British Beekeepers Association will use the money to fund research into best ways to keep bees and for training new bee keepers.

Buy Bee-Friendly products.
Neal's Yard do a fabulous Bee Lovely Hand Cream and donate £1 from each sale to help save the bees. It's a win-win situation - the bees get saved and you get soft hands! If you want to buy this product and live in the Bristol area get in touch and I can order it for you. :)


If you want to help the bees and you don't mind getting a little more hands on, The British Beekeepers Association run all kinds of courses in bee keeping. You can even lend your garden out to a bee keeper if you have the space. I for one, will be sticking to the distance methods of helping them out!

That's all I have to say on the subject, but you can find plenty more information about bees by clicking these links:

The British Beekeepers Association
Neal's Yard Bee Lovely Hand Cream - Scroll to the bottom of the page and they have lots of handy information links for you to follow.

So what are you going to do to save the bees?